What does USDA Wildlife Services and mentioning Representative DeFazio have to do with asking you to Vote4Wilderness?Well, the practices utilized by Wildlife Services to manage our wild animals have been exposed by advocacy groups, and the cessation of cruelty, and a call for transparency in this agency has been at the behest of Representative DeFazio.Heads up if you have been unaware of what goes on with our wildlife at the hands of USDA Wildlife Services, as it’s pretty gruesome.http://stopusdawsabuse.blogspot.com/p/usda-ws-united-states-department-of.htmlActually, we have an entire blog devoted to this issue, and the advocacy groups who are working to reform the conduct of USDA Wildlife Services. http://stopusdawsabuse.blogspot.com/Representative DeFazio is also calling for a no wolf hunt boundary zone around Yellowstone National Park.Reposted from:http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/content/congressman-wants-buffer-wolves-around-parkCongressman wants buffer for wolves around parkAssociated PressBy Matthew BrownJuly 8, 2014BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — An Oregon congressman is asking the Interior Department to work with states to curb gray wolf hunting around Yellowstone National Park.Rep. Peter DeFazio is the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.He said in a Tuesday letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell that hunters killing wolves just outside Yellowstone's boundary could hurt the overall health of the park's ecosystem.DeFazio asked for a "wolf safety zone" or buffer around the park, which includes parts of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. He also asked Jewell to establish a task force to devise protections for wolves around other national parks.State officials have resisted prior calls from wildlife advocates seeking an outright ban on wolf hunting around the park. However, quotas in some areas limit how many can be killed annually.Reposted from: http://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazio-calls-on-interior-to-protect-gray-wolves-in-or-near-nationalDeFazio Calls on Interior to Protect Gray Wolves In or Near National ParksJul 8, 2014 Press ReleaseYellowstone gray wolves have been killed by hunters just outside of park boundariesWashington, D.C. – Today, Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Peter DeFazio (D-OR) sent a letter urging Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to create critical buffer zones to protect endangered gray wolves in or around our National Parks. In 2011, Congress legislated a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to prematurely delist the gray wolf in Idaho, Montana, parts of Oregon and Washington when that proposal failed to pass muster in the courts. Since then numerous wolves have been killed just outside park borders.In the letter, DeFazio writes, “Even with the delisting rule, killing or trapping wolves is prohibited inside Yellowstone National Park. However, gray wolves do not respect invisible park boundaries and once the wolves cross out of the park and onto bordering lands, there are myriad inconsistent state regulations that allow hunters to kill wolves on sight; in some instances without limit. As a result, the Yellowstone wolves are being shot and killed right outside the borders of the park.” For over three years, the population of gray wolves in Yellowstone has steadily decreased as a result of hunting-related deaths. According to wildlife biologists, Yellowstone’s wolf population dropped 25% between 2011 and the end of 2012. The National Park Service reports that as of March 1, 2013, 12 Yellowstone National Park wolves were legally harvested just outside the park borders. To highlight one specific case, in late 2012, the New York Times reported that the renowned alpha wolf, 832F, was shot and killed just 15 miles outside park boundaries in Wyoming. In the letter, DeFazio requests that the Department of the Interior (DOI) undertake a concerted and coordinated effort to work with the states to establish a uniform wolf safety zone or buffer around Yellowstone National Park. He also asks DOI to establish an Interagency Wolf Task Force for the purpose of coordinating across the federal and state agencies to protect park wolves from adverse effects of trophy hunting and other causes of human-induced mortality in all National Parks with wolf populations.Today, DeFazio also sent a letter to Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) Dan Ashe, questioning his defense of the science used to justify the Service’s recent proposal to remove critical protections for endangered gray wolves in the remaining lower 48 states. In March, DeFazio led a bipartisan letter co-signed by 73 House members urging Secretary Jewell to withdraw the flawed proposal. The letter came on the heels of an independent peer review that found the Service failed to use the “best available science” when it drafted the proposed rule that would remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves in the continental United States.“In press accounts, you have indicated you have no second thoughts on the delisting proposal and dismissed the peer review as being too technical, despite the fact that the peer reviewers answered the questions that the Service put to them. It is remarkable that we would spend 20 years or more committed to the recovery of this species only to see it vanish well before the job has been completed. That is not only irresponsible, it is shameful, and I do not believe it is the goal of the ESA. In short, I find the morphing explanation based upon science which has failed a peer review to be unworthy of your agency,” DeFazio wrote to Director Ashe.The Service’s proposed rule to delist in the lower 48 has generated over 1 million comments since 2013. DeFazio recently led a CREDO Mobile petition to urge the Service to rescind the rule that generated nearly 160,000 signatures.http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/respect-science-and-maintain-endangered-species-act-protections-for-gray-wolves?sp_ref=34069603.4.4152.t.0.3&source=tw_spA copy of the Jewell letter can be found here.http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/sites/democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/files/2014-07-08_PAD%20to%20Sec%20%20Jewell%20re_gray%20wolf.pdfA copy of the Ashe letter can be found here.http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/sites/democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/files/2014-07-08_PAD%20to%20Dir%20%20Ashe%20re_gray%20wolf.pdfBackground on DeFazio’s actions on gray wolf issues, click here.http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/issue/gray-wolvesActually Vote4Wilderness was inspired to exist because of Representative DeFazio.There are three of us that are behind Vote4Wilderness, and it came to be after a conversation between two of us about how wonderful it would be if we had more Congressional members who possessed the vision and foresight that Representative DeFazio has displayed.We want you to help save our wilderness and our wildlife by voting for people that speak out in defense of conservation of our national treasures, both flora and fauna.Vote against those who would pillage and harm our American heritage. Our U.S.A. public lands belong to you and I, folks, and we are the only ones who can elect those who serve to protect our treasured, irreplaceable heritage. Once these lands are trashed, they are really difficult to restore, so let’s participate in preemptive strike, and make sure our lands are not devastated to begin with.